Fela Kuti & Africa 70 - Coffin For Head Of State

In 1977, the government of Nigeria had enough of Fela Kuti and decided to take evasive action on his walled-in residence that he called the Kalakuta Republic (Fela declared it a separate state). Over a thousand soldiers descended on the compound and savagely beat the residents. Fela himself escaped death (but not incarceration), but his activist mother was thrown through a window and broke her hip -- causing an injury that would take her life within that month. This prompted Fela to begin recording reactions to this event: "Coffin for Head of State" was an elegy for his lost mother, to whom he was very close. 

Four years after the raid he released “Coffin for Head of State,” a sole 22-minute composition released in two different versions, one instrumental and one with vocals, each occupying one side of the full LP. And true to the Africa 70’s most sprawling compositions, even the vocal version is mostly instrumental, driven by skeletal organ chords, a repeating bass groove, Tony Allen’s fluid rhythms and zig-zagging horn patterns.

It’s only when Kuti and his backup singers break through the hypnotic funk that the song transcends melodic ecstasy, turning what’s initially a critique of religious hypocrisy into a prayer incantation, following up chants of “Amen! Amen! Amen!” with “Allah Wakubar Mohammed Salamalekum.”

It’s defiant, mesmerizing, but even that doesn’t quite offer proper preparation for what unfolds. In simple language, Kuti narrates the raid on Kalakuta Republic (“Them burn my house too/Them kill my mama“) in a falsetto that cracks with an emotion beyond mere fury—there’s genuine anguish in his voice. To a degree there’s pain in all of Fela’s music, but here it breaks through the stylish surface, plainly, for all to see that he was more than just the voice of the struggle. His platform didn’t spare him from that same struggle. The difference was he never stopped fighting back.

Vinyl, LP, Reissue

Tracklist:
A Coffin For Head Of State (Instrumental)
B Coffin For Head Of State (Vocal)